Walking Bertie on Sunday morning, we crossed a field of freshly mown grass... the smell of it caused a huge emotional flashback to my youth when everyone would gather to do the haymaking. I'd be up on the back of the trailer with the job of stacking the bales as my dad, my brother and my brother-in-law tossed them up at me. Like brickwork, the first layer went in rows, then columns. Sometimes columns down the outside of the layer, rows in between. If you didn't stack them right, they'd all tumble off on the way back to the barn.
It's getting on for 40 years since I did the haymaking - eventually my dad replaced rectangular bales with those big tubular ones wrapped in plastic, and when that happened, I wasn't needed any more.
Amazing how much sensory memory was contained in the smell of that grass though, like a time machine taking me back to my youth in a way that a visual image just couldn't do. Never underestimate the power of your nose.
Harry Nilsson's 1977 album Knnillssonn was due to be his comeback. After rupturing his vocal chords during a wild night of drinking and debauchery with John Lennon a few years earlier, his voice had suffered on subsequent recordings. But it was back on top form by the time of Knnillssonn and his record company were up for promoting the heck out of it. Then an artist on the same label sadly passed away just as Knnillssonn was due to be released... and the promotional budget went on flogging Elvis Presley's back catalogue to the grieving masses.
Smashing anti-suicide anthem from Jim Bob and Fruitbat...
I didn't want to be so dozy, darling
I should have promised you a rosy garden
And told you life is sweet, stick around and enjoy it
Flush that stupid nonsense down the toilet
And lean on me I won't fall over
In the late 90s, Beth Orton recorded an EP with 70s soul/jazz legend Terry Callier, including this gorgeous take on Callier's own leaning composition. Their voices just go so well together.
Are we happy, are we scared? Are we shouting never heard? Are we running, running brave? Are we fighting, making waves?
If you answered yes to these questions, chances are you grew up in the 1980s. Red Box have now released three studio albums: one in 1986, one in 1990... and one in 2010 (which was a big hit in Poland).
Everyone always goes on about how The Smiths threw away some of their greatest songs on b-sides (How Soon Is Now!!!) but Paul Heaton did the same with his original band, The Housemartins. I'd always assumed this was a cover version. Turns out when I read the sleeve notes that it is a Heaton original, written "on the spot as a filler" with Pete "18 With A Bullet" Wingield, and so good it ended up making its way onto their debut album. While it's not quite in the same league as today's winning tune, it's still an amazing recording. (And, as Martin said while commenting on my last post, we all need a little more Housemartins in our lives.)
1. Bill Withers - Lean On Me
No prizes for guessing my Number One. A timeless soul classic originally released when I was one month old. Withers appears to have retired from music making in the late 80s, but I guess he still dines out on this song... and all its many, many successful cover versions.
